People are unable to recognize or report on their own eye movements
Abstract
Eye movements bring new information into our visual system. The selection of each fixation is the result of a complex interplay of image features, task goals, and biases in motor control and perception. To what extent are we aware of the selection of saccades and their consequences? Here we use a converging methods approach to answer this question in three diverse experiments. In Experiment 1, participants were directed to find a target in a scene by a verbal description of it. We then presented the path the eyes took together with those of another participant. Participants could only identify their own path when the comparison scanpath was searching for a different target. In Experiment 2, participants viewed a scene for three seconds and then named objects from the scene. When asked whether they had looked directly at a given object, participants' responses were primarily determined by whether or not the object had been named, and not by whether it had been fixated. In Experiment 3, participants executed saccades towards single targets and then viewed a replay of either the eye movement they had just executed or that of someone else. Participants were at chance to identify their own saccade, even when it contained under- and overshoot corrections. The consistent inability to report on one's own eye movements across experiments suggests that awareness of eye movements is extremely impoverished or altogether absent. This is surprising given that information about prior eye movements is clearly used during visual search, motor error correction, and learning.Citation
Clarke AD, Mahon A, Irvine A, Hunt AR (2017) 'People are unable to recognize or report on their own eye movements', Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70 (11), pp.2251-2270.Publisher
SAGEPubMed ID
27595318Additional Links
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/17470218.2016.1231208Type
ArticleLanguage
enISSN
1747-0218EISSN
1747-0226ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1080/17470218.2016.1231208
Scopus Count
Collections
The following license files are associated with this item:
- Creative Commons
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Green - can archive pre-print and post-print or publisher's version/PDF
Related articles
- Misdirection, attention and awareness: inattentional blindness reveals temporal relationship between eye movements and visual awareness.
- Authors: Kuhn G, Findlay JM
- Issue date: 2010 Jan
- Scene context guides eye movements during visual search.
- Authors: Neider MB, Zelinsky GJ
- Issue date: 2006 Mar
- The nature of the global effect beyond the first eye movement.
- Authors: Silvis JD, Olmos Solis K, Donk M
- Issue date: 2015 Mar
- Eye movements and attention in reading, scene perception, and visual search.
- Authors: Rayner K
- Issue date: 2009 Aug
- Making eye contact without awareness.
- Authors: Rothkirch M, Madipakkam AR, Rehn E, Sterzer P
- Issue date: 2015 Oct